WHEN THE SEASON TURNS
by Jocelyn Watkins, 2026 Illinois/Wisconsin District moderator
“He also said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head’” (Mark 4:26-28).
“I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you” (2 Timothy 1:6).
Beloved in Christ,
March rarely arrives gently in our part of the world. Winter does not simply step aside. The ground softens unevenly. Snow melts in one place while lingering stubbornly in another. Wind sweeps across open fields, and storms move through without much warning. Some days feel like spring, while others remind us that winter has not finished its work.
It can be hard to tell what season we are truly in, but if we pay attention, small changes begin to appear. The light lingers longer in the evening. Water begins to move again along the edges of fields and roads. The soil loosens beneath the surface. Life that has been held through the long cold months begins, slowly, to stir.
Scripture speaks often about seasons like this. Ecclesiastes reminds us that there is “a time for every matter under heaven,” naming time itself as part of God’s ordering of the world. Jesus once described the kingdom of God in similarly patient terms. In the Gospel of Mark, he tells of a farmer who scatters seed on the ground and then simply continues with the rhythm of his days, sleeping and rising, night and day, while the seed sprouts and grows, though “he does not know how” (Mark 4:27).
Something important is happening beneath the surface, even when the signs are difficult to read.
Perhaps that is especially important to remember in a time when many of the headlines around us speak of conflict, division, and uncertainty. The Brethren tradition has long believed that peace does not begin with governments or armies, but with communities willing to live differently: patiently, deliberately, and with care for one another.
Living this way asks something of us. As the world grows louder with the language of conflict and retaliation, the church is called to practice something different. We are called to resist the habits of hostility, to speak with care when others speak with anger, and to remember that the work of peace begins close at hand: in the ways we treat one another, the ways we listen, and the ways we choose mercy over fear. Perhaps this, too, is part of what it means to be Kindled Anew.
March rarely tells us exactly what the coming season will hold, but it does offer small signs that the story is still unfolding; and sometimes, those first signs are enough.
(2026 logo designed by Madalyn Metzger)
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